Nigerian Solution for Trump’s Wall and Theresa May’s Brexit By Abimbola Lagunju

The US Government has been in partial shut down for about 30 days now because Mr. Trump wants the Congress to include 5.7 billion US$ for his wall on the Southern border of the United States in the budget and the congress doesn’t  think there is a need to build another structure visible from space and very likely to be named after Trump in years to come. The Congress prefers software reinforcement of the border which cannot be named after anybody. In his “compromise” speech yesterday, Mr. Trump offered the democrats some of the medicine which he himself had refused in 2018 in exchange for money for his wall in order to reopen the paralyzed arms of US government.  Mr. Trump wants his hardware – concrete or steel.

Just a few days earlier, I also watched how the House of Commons of Britain shot down Theresa May’s Brexit Plan. They rejected the plan with a big majority and gave her three days to present a new plan. They humbled her and she almost also lost her government too. She’s not out of the woods yet as her Plan B may also be rejected by the British Parliament and this time, maybe her government will be shown out the door of No. 10 Downing Street.

As I watched Mr. Trump’s speech and the vote on Brexit, I could not help but think of Nigerian politics and leaders. I watched the helplessness of Mr. Trump and realized that he has met his match in Nancy Pelosi. And neither could Mrs. May do anything about members of her own party that voted against her Brexit Plan. The question that came to my mind was “how would a Nigerian leader, president or governor or even a district (local government) chairman handle a situation like Trump’s or May’s?” And secondly, how can Nigerian democratic and elective leadership experience help out Mr. Trump from his “logjam” and help bring Mrs. May’s party members to toe the line traced by their leader?

In Nigeria, the solution would be a multi-pronged strategy to convince the dissidents to abandon their opposition to the leader’s pet project. Cash inducements of the recalcitrant legislators would probably come first. Suitcases of money would find their way to the lockers of the dissidents in the parliament to help them recalibrate their thinking. Many would quickly see the need for the wall and under this inducement might even propose to the president not to limit the wall to the borders of the country, but to also fence the entire borders of the offending country.

If cash fails, then the Police would be called in to remember an offence committed sometime by the staunchest opposing legislators. Their offence would be published in the press; then they would be invited to the Police Station where they could be detained for a few days before being sent to court. Senior Advocates of Nigeria, young and old in large numbers would then turn up at the court proceedings. If the legislators suddenly see reason for the construction of the wall, then the case fizzles out. The Nigerian press also fizzles out with the case.  Very often the defendant feigns some terminal illness and asks the court for permission to travel abroad. He disappears abroad for some time and later sneaks back into the country. On his return, he becomes an advocate for the leader’s pet project.

Sometimes, the Police is boycotted for a more rapid and equally effective strategy. The fearful EFCC (Nigeria’s Financial Crimes Agency) would be called in to dust up long-dormant files of the dissident legislators. Here in Nigeria, it is generally assumed that most of our leaders have committed one economic crime or the other in their previous lives in other elective capacities before reaching the parliament. The dissidents would be invited by the EFCC Office with a good press coverage. The fear of EFCC and the public knowledge of their hither-to hidden financial and corruption crimes invariably would change the mind of the legislators about the construction of the wall. They would vote “Aye” by text message while still in EFCC custody and after a few days, “their sins would be forgiven”.

In Nigeria, each politician worth his salt has his army of thugs, composed of disenchanted youth, transport workers and professional thugs. The bigger the army, the more likely you would win an elective position; and the leader’s army of thugs is supposed to be the biggest and the most violent. The dissident legislators could get a home-visit, or their vehicles waylaid by thugs often with life-threatening intentions.

In the end, opposition is swept aside, and the leader gets his pet project approved. These strategies do not follow a particular order. They may all be deployed simultaneously or in any order. It is the result that matters – a leader’s pet project cannot be opposed by the parliament. It does not matter if the project never gets executed after disbursement of funds – that is another potential dormant file to be visited another day by EFCC.

If Mr. Trump really wants his wall, and Theresa May really wants her Brexit Plan approved, a short training by Nigerian politicians in Abuja would do them a lot of good. After all, that is what friends are for.

The African Migrant in A World with Dividing Eyes By Abimbola Lagunju

When you read or hear migration experts, NGOs (both local and international) as well as International Organizations and their donors speak of migration by Black Africans to Europe or to any other part of the world, you get the impression that in all probability, in a few years, Africa will be depleted of its original peoples as they will all have moved away to other countries. Such discussions seek to evoke a mental scenario of an Africa (without Africans) populated by the Chinese (who are as mobile as Africans) sharing our land with Boers and other Europeans while Africans inhabit Western Europe and other developed countries

The fear of an imaginary exchange of continent of habitation by Black Africans with other parts of the world, particularly with Western Europe has been an object and subject of many conferences, the purpose of which is to devise ways of preventing this occurrence. These ways include carrot and stick approaches towards apparently indifferent African governments to keep their people behind their borders and to develop at least on paper national migration policies. This fear has also fired up extreme nationalist parties in European countries, who are making gains in different parliaments hoisting the flag of race and religious phobias.

As usual, NGOs and International Organizations have jumped on the bus to benefit from the fear. There are many illusory projects based on only-understood-to-them theories to contain Africans within their borders. These organizations in their bid to sustain their benefits from their grants reinforce the fear of their donors. Also, these organizations also try to invoke fear of death and suffering along the migration route in potential African hotfoots. Fear is the commodity in which everyone involved in migration trades. And Mr. Donald Trump who is demanding for five billion dollars to build a wall along the southern border of the United States is the current biggest trader.

However, to the chagrin of traders of fear, the African hotfoots and their governments do not trade in this commodity. The potential migrants think of suffering as a sacrifice that must be made and if death comes in trying, it is heroic to submit to its claws. It is general knowledge that whether here or there or on the way, suffering is inevitable. It is the price that this civilization exacts from us Black Africans in all existential ramifications.

African leaders, who have turned out to be the wisest human beings in this Trade Fear have been largely silent about the outflow of their peoples. Not that they can do anything about it anyway. These leaders have been looking helplessly on since forced migration of slave trade through the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program years when the African professionals trained by their poor governments were shamelessly poached by rich governments without any reparation for years of investment. The same rich governments called the poor African leaders to conferences to discuss “brain drain”. Using health as an example, they told African leaders that Sub-Sahara Africa had the highest disease burden in the world and the least health workforce to confront the disease burden. As usual, African government made the right noises and moved on.

More than other leaders, Black African leaders understand the right and the desire of people to move. This understanding is not born of modern concepts and ideologies, it is innate. It is as ingrained in the DNA of an African just as melanin is. These leaders understand and know that the desire to move from one place of habitation is an almost uncontrollable urge, which is sometimes urgent, sometimes slow-burning, but it is always there.

Migration experts like to pretend to understand why the people move. They write many theories from economic to climate change through demographic explosion to explain current migration tendencies. All the theories invariably share one thing in common - they portray external factors and influences as inducers of human movements. It is possible to study migration patterns but to seek to fully ascribe rational reasons to on-going unforced movements may be satisfying intellectually but deficient in the understanding of human nature, particularly the African mind and his worldview.

While economic reasons may, to some degree come into play in the current migration of Africans, the urge to change place of habitation and livelihood also plays a role. This urge that I term, volo-refugia (a movement fired by an urge) cannot be appeased with economic inducements nor suppressed by fear of suffering or death on the route. It is a powerful internal drive probably powered by forces beyond the understanding of the traveler or his observers.

Thankfully, the fraction of African hotfoots is infinitesimal compared to the general Black African population and to the fraction of hotfoots from other countries. A Gallup poll released last week showed that 16% of Americans in 2018 said they would like to move to another country. It was a small news item despite the enormous figure this translates into. Imagine the number of conferences, projects and grants that would erupt if a Gallup poll were to show that 1.6% of Africans expressed the desire to migrate to other countries.

There have been three mass movements of Africans from Africa in history – one voluntary (from the Rift Valley) and two forced (Arab slave trade and the transatlantic slave trade). The voluntary departure from Africa gave rise to new human races and in the forced departures, the destination countries were the primary beneficiaries. At no time in human history has the presence of Black Africans caused harm to other cultures. On the contrary, the presence of other cultures has multiply harmed Black Africans on their own soil.

The African hotfoot, the volo-refugia on the way or on your soil is harmless. Protect him.

God SAVE US ! By Abimbola Lagunju

They knew the metrics

of the long rope,

Red noose trail from

faraway neck

to distant padded hump

of a tired shrub in hormoned-out savannah.

They heard his song

of hope in abasement;

Desolate music played

by base orchestra

strumming fear,

hugging hate.

This other they thought hate had died

never to rise again, after all,

his was a silent song

in a forgotten wilderness

echoed by a few dry leaves

that would rot with the next rainfall.

But winged on southern winds,

fired dry leaves

smoke their way into tweets

that drive wonder nuts

as reason is baptized fake and

sanity takes refuge in a psychiatric ward.

Midway the red trail,

The caravan turns one eighty degrees

away from crotch destiny

neck-ways,

gently tugging at the noose

as fresh air enters the lower house.

January 2019